


Mars616

by SuperLadiesOfSHIELD



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Future, Gen, Mars, Science Fiction, so forgive me for not having a clue on what to tag this as, space, space travel, this is my first thing i'm actually posting on here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-29 19:11:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18300266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperLadiesOfSHIELD/pseuds/SuperLadiesOfSHIELD
Summary: The year is 2168. 92 years ago there was a huge climate change crisis which forced the government to flee with who they decided was worth taking to the newly built space station on Mars. Now enter our cast: Leila, the Nerd, Collin, the Cool Kid, Jordan, the Jock, Claire, the Prep, and Jonathan, the kid that nobody really knows anything about. When they are accused of committing a crime which they are not guilty of, they are forced to escape back to Earth to avoid a death sentence. But what happens when something shocking is revealed in their search to uncover who framed them?





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone (assuming that anyone's actually reading this). This is my first work posted to AO3 so please consider that while reading this. Who knows if anyone will like it, but hey, what's the worst that can happen? I know I'm bad at summaries, but I feel like most authors on here would agree that summaries are hard, so I don't feel too bad about it. If you have any questions or anything my ask box is always open on tumblr (@superladiesofshield). Oh, I'm not sure if AO3 will like the google docs formatting, but if the paragraphs are messed up enough by moving between sites let me know and I'll fix it. Ok, I think that that is all... Enjoy!

“Come on!” Jordan yelled over the loud shriek of alarms which pierced the air like a pin accidentally striking a finger - sharp, harsh, and now. Leila forced herself to run faster, grabbing ahold of Claire's hand to pull her along. Collin was right behind them, with the last member of their party of five, Jonathan, taking the lead.  
“Where are we even going?” asked Claire, gasping for breath.  
“Just follow me,” responded Jonathan. “I know a place where we can hide for now, though we’ll need to find a better long term solution after all this chaos dies down.”  
In that moment Leila made the split-second decision to trust her peer and followed him left down the hall of the Mars616 station, hoping that he knew what he was doing, for all of their sakes, then down the L stairs, from where they turned right into the storehouse section of the station. It was then that Jonathan slowed to a brisk walk, motioning for the group to be quiet with his index finger pressed to his lips. He then proceeded to carefully walk down the hall, keeping an eye out for guards.  
“This area is off-limits,” worried Claire in a hushed voice. “If we get found here the sentence is one year jail time, more if they find ‘sufficient evidence’ that we tried to steal something expensive.”  
“Not sure how to tell you this, but we're going to be facing a lot worse than a year's worth of jail time if we get caught,” whispered Jordan, trying to joke but utterly failing due to the tense atmosphere.  
“But they can't throw us in jail if we haven't actually done the crime they accused us of! Surely they don't think five teenagers could really pull that off,” responded Claire, clearly more so trying to reassure herself than any of her companions.  
“Uh, did you see those guards chasing us back there? They didn't look like they thought we couldn't pull off something that big. They looked at us like we were dangerous war criminals or something,” retorted Jordan. “Besides, we all know that the system is corrupt. Even if they had solid evidence that some government official did it they would still blame us, so long as we weren't able to prove them wrong. None of us is anything higher than a three, and even then Leila is the only one that ranks as high as that, and that's because her parents are scientists. They didn't change the rule promoting scientists to threes until four years ago. None of the government officials even recognize it, it's only symbolic. And even that is only because of the huge strike they went on. Just face it; we’re expendable.”  
Leila tuned out Claire's response and chose instead to walk alongside Jonathan. “So, care to grace me with the knowledge of where you’re taking us?” she asked, trying to force her voice to take on a friendly, joking tone, as though they weren't wanted criminals trying to escape a life sentence of imprisonment.  
“Somewhere safe,” responded Jonathan, his eyes never stopping scanning the side halls and doorways, as though he were almost expecting a guard to jump them from one of those dark corners.  
“Still keeping up the whole dark-edgy-mysterious gambit I see,” said Collin, coming up on Jonathan's other side.  
Jonathan ignored him, continuing to keep an eye out for potential threats.  
“And still as talkative as ever,” Collin continued sarcastically, trying to relieve some of the tension which had been cast over the group like a net.  
Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, Jonathan whispered out a hurried “Everyone shut up!”  
“You don't have to be so rude about it. We're just trying to-,” Jordan started to say, but was cut off by a sharp “I mean it!” from Jonathan as he corralled the group into an empty doorway. Seconds later, they heard the heavy footsteps of a guard turn the corner and walk past them.  
Though it was only mere seconds until the guard was out of earshot, it felt more like hours. As soon as it was safe to, it seemed like the entire group let out the collective breath that they had been holding.  
“How did you know that that guard would be coming?” asked Claire.  
“Have you seen the way he walks around here with no hesitation? He clearly comes down here often. It makes sense that he would be used to watching out for the guards before they notice him, and his hearing would be sharper because of that. Right?” Leila cut in, glancing at Jonathan for confirmation.  
“Yeah, pretty much,” Jonathan nodded his head. He glanced around twice before motioning for everyone to continue down the hallway. As they walked, Leila wondered why he would risk coming down here. She knew that Jonathan was only a six, meaning that his parents likely wouldn't have high enough connections to bribe him out of punishment.  
She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn't realise that everyone had stopped walking until she bumped into Collin. She quickly stammered out an apology, her cheeks heating up in embarrassment as she did so.  
Collin was the kid in their class that everyone liked for some reason which Leila couldn't figure out a logical reason for. But nevertheless, all the girls seemed to have crush on him, and all the boys wanted to be his friend. Normally when there was someone that all the girls fawned over the rest of the boys would get extremely jealous and shun him, but that was somehow not the case with Collin. Even the teachers liked him, regardless of the fact that he was always getting into trouble. Well, most people liked him. Leila found him to be annoying. He was always interrupting class and distracting everyone from their work. He didn't even have the jock excuse to back him up like Jordan did.  
Leila looked up and saw why everyone had stopped. Jonathan was making quick work of taking a grate that led into the ventilation system off the wall.  
“Um, are you sure that this is a good idea?” asked Claire nervously, picking at her perfectly polished nails in worry.  
“Trust me,” replied Jonathan. “I come through here at least three times a week. It's safe. And it's our only option, unless you want to get sent to Pluto.” He said the last part in a mocking tone. As children, if someone was getting executed, they were simply told that the person was being sent to Pluto. Leila remembered that at recess the kids in her class would often talk about their theories as to what Pluto was like. They were always asking the teacher about it too, claiming that they wanted to go to Pluto. At the time, it had made Leila sick to her stomach, as she knew full and well what “getting sent to Pluto” meant, after witnessing it take place one evening when she snuck out of her room. She stopped sneaking out for a while after that. Though now she figured that the discussions could easily apply to them talking about the afterlife as well. If there was an afterlife. She supposed that they would find out soon enough if they didn't hurry up.  
***  
The hole in the wall where the grate had been rested about six feet high. Collin climbed up easily, being the tallest in their group at 6’3”. Jordan gave Claire a boost up before turning to Leila. “Need some help?”  
“Thanks, but I can do a pull-up,” responded Leila with a smirk.  
“Suit yourself, Princess,” Jordan said with a shrug before pulling himself up.  
Leila followed right behind, the muscles in her arms flexing as she pulled herself into the vents seemingly effortlessly. Everyone stared in shock. After a couple of seconds, Claire broke the silence. “Since when have you been able to do that?”  
“Now’s not the time,” Leila said, moving further into the vents to allow Jonathan to climb up. She figured that their shock was fair. She was the nerdy bookish girl in their class, and she avoided working out around other people. But now was not the time to be discussing her arms.  
As Jonathan followed, sealing the grate behind them, the group moved forward in the cramped space, following Jonathan's directions on where to turn. Eventually they reached another grate and popped it open, climbing through and jumping down onto the ground.  
Leila looked around, trying to get a sense for where Jonathan had taken them. The answer to her unspoken question came moments later.  
“We’re in one of the storage facilities. The supplies in here aren't due to be used for a few more weeks, so we should be good until we can figure out some sort of plan to get ourselves out of this.”  
“Then a plan is where we should start. Anyone have any ideas?” asked Collin.  
“Well, we know that there's nowhere we can go on the station, unless anyone feels like hiding around in storage rooms for the rest of our lives,” reasoned Leila.  
“So then where do you suggest we go?” asked Claire, this time twirling her hair around her finger while biting her lips. That girl really did have a lot of nervous habits, didn't she?  
“We leave the station,” Leila stated simply.  
“Leave the station?” asked Jordan. “What, you're suggesting that we go to Pluto ourselves or something, save the guards the trouble?”  
“No. I'm suggesting we go to Earth.”  
Everyone stared at her in silence for a few moments, before Jordan laughed. “Go to Earth? That's a good one. Now tell us your real plan. God knows you have one, Miss straight As.”  
“I wasn't joking.”  
“It's actually not a half bad idea. Anywhere we go on the station we’ll get hunted down and killed. They won't waste precious fuel sending anyone after us if we leave. Provided we can manage to grow enough food to live down there, it's probably our only chance at survival,” Collin said.  
“God, I miss when my biggest problem was working myself to insanity to get at least a B on a test because it would make my parents stop fighting, at least for a little while.” Everyone but Jonathan turned to Claire in shock. They didn't know that the Wrights had problems. They certainly didn't let it show in public. Leila wondered why Jonathan wasn't shocked. Had he already known, or did he just not care enough to let the shock affect his facial expression?  
“Now, we need a much more sophisticated plan than “grab a spaceship and get out of here”. Does anyone actually know how to pilot one?” asked Leila.  
To her surprise, Collin spoke up. “No need. Most of the ships here have been upgraded to fly themselves, all we need to do is put in where we want to go.”  
“That… seems too easy, but I'll take it. Do you know if they already have fuel, or if we’ll need to find some? By the way, how do you know so much about spaceships?”  
“There should be at least one with fuel, I can double check which one. There's a day-trip to the moon scheduled for three days from now, so we'll need to leave before then. And to answer your question, it started as a childhood obsession, and grew into an unrealistic teenage dream that I can't seem to let go of. At least it proved to be useful for something, though, right?”  
Leila nodded. She would ask him about that in more detail later, there seemed to be a story that wanted to get told behind it. But for now, they needed to focus. “Alright, if transportation is covered is covered, then the next thing we need is supplies. Thanks to Jonathan we have fairly easy access to everything we will need. Claire, you're on bottled water, as much of it as you can find, but make sure to stay in the storage rooms with the latest usage dates possible. That goes for everyone - we don't want to be found. Later usage dates also means later expiration dates, so the food will last us longer. Jordan, you're on food. Anything preserved that won't break. Beans, soup, peanut butter, canned and dried fruit - we will need the Vitamin C, beef jerky, canned pasta - ravioli, spaghetti; anything you can find. Collin, I need you to check which ship we’re going to be taking.” She turned to Jonathan. “Is there a computer somewhere down here that he can use?”  
“Yeah, they're down in undefined storage - things that don't yet have a set date to be used. Computers will be on the top floor, they get replaced pretty often from people dropping them all the time.”  
“Great. Would I be correct to assume that that is also where we’d find camping equipment?”  
“On the lower levels, yes. All the camping gear we find in there will be ancient, though. All of the new gear is at the recreation centre.”  
“That won't be a problem. The old gear was designed for camping on Earth, which is what we’ll be doing. It'll probably hold up better than a tent made for a completely controlled climate with no weather changes whatsoever.”  
“Fair point.”  
“All right,” Leila said, mostly to herself, scouring her brain for any essentials they'd missed. “Oh! Collin, after you've figured out which ship we need, do you think that you could grab medicine and other medical supplies? Advil, cold medicine, anything else that doesn't need a prescription, as well as slings, bandages, ice packs, and as many first aid kits as you can find. We don't know what we'll be facing.” Collin nodded to show that he understood. “We're also going to need utensils, dishes and weapons, which should also so be in undefined storage, so as soon as everyone is done their jobs, if you could head down and help with that that would be great.” she paused for a second. “Ok, that should be everything… let's get to work!”  
***  
Jordan and Claire started walking together towards where the later stores of food and water were kept. Thankfully, they were able to go through the hallways rather than the vents since once you got through the door to the storage area, which they had bypassed by going through the vents initially, there were no more locks on the doors.  
Jordan tried to make small talk to break the silence that the pair had been walking in. “Who knew that Leila had it in her to take on such a leadership role? She’s always been the quietest person in the class.” He considered for a moment. “Except maybe Jonathan.”  
Claire laughed. “You wouldn’t be surprised if you actually spent time with her. She’s never been a follower. We used to be friends back in year 8 before she decided that school was more important that having a social life and I disagreed. I was sad to lose her. She was the first true friend I had that my parents actually approved of. And she’s only quiet in class because she’s focused on her work. Have you seen her when the teacher holds class discussions? Her hand shoots up like a rocket.”  
“That it does,” Jordan responded with a smile. “And I suppose that I shouldn’t be shocked. I mean, have you ever worked on a group project with her? That girl can be intense.”  
“You know, I’ve always been a bit jealous of her,” Claire confessed. “I can’t help but wonder, would I still be the same person I am today if I’d chosen to focus on school alongside her rather than parties and popularity?”  
Jordan knew that Claire didn’t normally open herself up like this. Even to him, and he figured that he was the person that she was closest with. He would never admit it, but she was the person he was closest to as well. Ever since Claire had begun her climb to popularity and he had become quarterback on Opportunity High’s football team - the most cliche sounding school name ever, he knew; but it was actually named that because the school had been built where the Mars rover Opportunity had finally broken down, the two of them had become close. It started with everyone expecting them to get together - the popular girl with the quarterback, the most cliche thing ever, yet their peers didn’t seem to care. That didn’t end up happening, though they become close friends, more like siblings than anything. Not that he would ever say that to his actual little sister, Julia.  
“Well, there’s no use dwelling on the things we can’t change, right?” Jordan said, putting his arm around Claire. “Unless you happen to know where we could get a time machine?”  
Claire laughed, leaning into his embrace. “You know, even though this is a pretty sucky situation, at least we’ve got each other, right?”  
Jordan nodded. “Yeah. And the rest of the group isn’t that bad either. Can you imagine if we’d gotten stuck with Kyle?”  
Claire laughed. “That would’ve been a nightmare! I just might have gone to Pluto rather than have to deal with him.”  
Jordan smirked at that. While going to Pluto referred to execution, it had also become slang over the years among Mars616’s youth for killing yourself. It was sort of ironic, a mockery of their childhoods.  
They continued walking together until they reached the room with the latest date on it, October 16th-22nd, 2168. 5 months from the current date, and 92 years after Earth’s elite, or basically whomever the American government had considered worthy of survival at the time, had fled Earth to instead live approximately 225 million kilometres away, on the newly constructed Mars 616 station. They had left because of rising extremes due to climate change which made Earth unideal for human life. Mars616 had continued keeping tabs on Earth via a newsfeed streaming directly from NASA headquarters.  
When news got out to the general public a few months before the launch, they were furious. Many people found it unfair that not everyone could be saved. But Mars616 only had so many spaces available. Jordan personally thought that the government had handled selecting people quite well. Of course the first spots had gone to politicians, and the next to high ranking army officers, with skilled doctors and scientists being the next priority, but after that they held a lottery for the rest of the positions. Of course, you had to meet certain requirements to enter, and could enter under more than one requirement should you apply. Each requirement corresponded with a category, each of which had a certain number of spots allotted to it. Aside from the mere survival of the human race, the government had seen that the survival of humanity was also necessary, causing them to include the arts in their considerations of who was vital to the human race. The categories were farmers, musicians, artists, teachers, authors, lower ranking army officers and police officers, programmers, and engineers, with the last category being anyone aged 18-25, so as to continue human life.  
Via the newsfeed they had found that Earth had remained fit for human life for six years before the line went dead. Using satellites, they watched as wave after wave of alternating hot and cold extremes hit Earth, one after the other, each lasting for about six months. It was unlikely that there was much, if any, human survival on Earth, from a combination of the weather conditions as well as crops and livestock being heavily affected and therefore having a decrease in available food. The extreme weather shifts also caused many earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornados, and volcanic eruptions that would not have otherwise happened. Thankfully the natural disasters had changed from happening almost monthly to only happening around once a year, and the temperatures had evened out again, but they had still wreaked havoc and left a lasting impact.  
The pair entered the door and split up within the small room to begin grabbing their assigned supplies. They made quick work of stacking boxes onto trolleys before bringing everything back to the room where they had started. They saw that nobody else had returned yet, so they headed down to undefined storage to help out. On the way there, they passed Collin, carrying a laptop with him. Jordan raised a hand in a wave, and Collin smiled and waved back.  
“Off to hack into 616’s system to find us a ship down to Earth?” Jordan asked.  
“Something like that.”  
“Well, have fun.”  
Collin nodded and they continued in their respective directions. They continued walking down the hallway until they reached undefined storage. They walked through the door and went down the elevator to level U-3 where the directory said that camping equipment was stored. Jordan remembered when they had taken a class trip down to the storage area in year 5. Not much had changed in the six years that had passed since he’d been down there last.  
After stepping out of the elevator, Jordan and Claire followed the sound of voices until they came across Jonathan and Leila. Leila was standing atop a ladder and passing down lightweight sleeping bags to Jonathan who was stacking them onto a trolley which already held two large tents intended for ten people as well as seven inflatable sleeping mats.  
“Hey!” Leila said, jumping down from the ladder after passing a seventh sleeping bag down to Jonathan.  
“Hey,” responded Claire.  
“What are the extra supplies for?” asked Jordan.  
“We figured that it would be a good idea to bring extras in case any get ruined,” explained Leila.  
“Smart. What can we help with?”  
“We still need to grab toiletries, water filters, iodine tablets, hiking packs in case we need to go anywhere, flashlights, matches, lanterns, rope, nets, dishes, utensils, and weapons.” Leila turned to Jonathan. “Do you want to show Jordan where the rope, nets, dishes and utensils are and Claire and I will handle the rest of the camping supplies, toiletries, and weapons?”  
“Sure. Let’s go.” Jonathan motioned to Jordan leading him towards the elevator to go to floor U-2 where the dishes and utensils were kept. Jonathan led him through the maze of shelves to where the plates were stored first.  
“Here’” he said, handing a box set of dishes meant for eight to Jordan. It contained both large and small plates, bowls, mugs, a serving bowl and a serving plate, before grabbing some heavy pots and pans.  
“You really know your way around here, don’t you?” Jordan asked as they walked towards the utensils, their route taking them past the cooking utensils.  
“I’ve spent a lot of time down here. Knowing it like the back of my hand is a side effect,” Jonathan said as he handed off items to Jordan; a flipper, a wooden spoon for stirring, a ladle, some tongs, a can opener, some kitchen knives.  
“Why have you spent so much time down here anyway? What made it worth the risk?” They continued walking until they reached where the utensils were stored and they grabbed ten sets of cutlery, each including a fork, butter knife, steak knife, tablespoon, and teaspoon.  
“It started out as somewhere I could find access to old books, movies, television shows, but eventually turned into a refuge,” the other boy said as they headed back towards the elevator.  
Jordan knew better than to ask questions. He knew that as a six Jonathan probably lived a much less comfortable life than he did, and Jordan was only a four. The social system on Mars616 consisted of seven tiers. Ones referred to high-class politicians. Generally the only people that could move up to being a one by career were twos, though there had been instances of threes managing it, and he knew that there were a lucky few who had managed it by marriage, though marriage generally stayed within tiers. Twos were lower class politicians and high-ranking officers. Not so difficult to get into if you work hard enough either in school or as a low-ranking officer. Which brings us to threes: Low-ranking guards, the extremely wealthy who had paid to get a spot on the 616, and, now, doctors and scientists. Next were fours: the farmers, engineers, programmers, and teachers. They were actually pretty well off, though there was a hierarchy within the tier. Different families had different connection, different influence, which made them to be considered more wealthy, though money didn’t exist on the 616. After the fours were the fives, consisting of artists, musicians, professional sports players, performers, and authors. And then the last tier, the sixes. They were the janitors, the people who brought around rations on ration day, the people who canned the food.  
The tiers represented how important someone was to survival, and how difficult their job is. How expendable they are. It is possible to marry up into a tier, but not down. It is also possible to climb to a higher tier by career, though it is difficult, as job openings usually go to people with the greatest connections, unless you have extremely high qualifications which make you impossible not to hire.  
Higher tiers also have a better chance at getting new household items when they are requested than lower tiers. On the 616 they have a distribution system. Food is brought weekly to each family and that is what they have for the week, with dietary requirements in mind, of course, though it isn’t uncommon for people to trade food with other families because of preference. For distribution of everything else: furniture, computers, toys, etc. a request had to be filed. Though the system was meant to be fair, it couldn’t be denied that high-tier families were receiving their requests a lot faster than the low-tier families.  
The pair reached the elevator and went to floor U-4 to grab the rope and nets. After retrieving a large amount of the two items, they returned to U-3 to dump their findings onto the trolley with the tents, which now also held a large box which must have been toiletries, water filters, iodine tablets, hiking packs, flashlights, a fuel-powered camping stove, matches, and lanterns. Since the girls weren’t here, Jordan figured that they had gone to get weapons. He was about to voice this when Collin came around the corner with medical supplies.  
“Hey guys,” he said. “Is there anything else that needs to be grabbed?”  
“Just weapons,” Jordan said. “The girls are probably already doing that, if you guys want to go join them?”  
“Sounds like a plan,” said Jonathan, and the three boys went to the elevator to head to the weapons section.  
***  
“Do you actually know how to shoot one of those?” Leila asked in amazement as Claire added a bow and a quiver of arrows to the weapons that they had stacked in a pile.  
“I do,” Claire said. “Don’t tell anyone, but I decided to learn because of a book.”  
“No!” Leila gasped. “Perhaps we’ll make a nerd of you yet. I’m curious, though. What book was it?”  
“Oh, you probably haven’t read it,” said Claire, old memories resurfacing. “It’s pretty old. It’s called The Hunger Games. The main character shoots a bow, so I decided that I wanted to learn how as well.”  
“Hmm, I haven’t read that one. Though it must be good if it can get you to take up a sport,” Leila teased.  
Claire smirked. “And how about you, hm? Since when did you decide you wanted to work out instead of having your nose constantly stuck in a book?”  
“Please, you doubt my ability to read while working out?”  
“Knowing you, I should have expected that.” Claire smiled. It felt nice to playfully banter with Leila again. Just like the old times. She wished that they hadn’t grown apart so much during the start of their high school years.  
It was then that the three boys walked in, their steps faltering when they saw the two girls grinning at each other. “Are we interrupting something?” asked Jordan.  
“Nope,” said Claire, popping the ‘p’. “I was just telling Leila about The Hunger Games.”  
Everyone looked confused except for Jonathan, who laughed. After all, he was the one who had introduced her to the series. “Impressing her with your bow skills, are you?”  
“Uh huh. I beat you to it. Now you’ll just be the second kid in the group who can use a bow.”  
“You’ll be thanking me when you aren’t the only one who has the ability to hunt for food.”  
Everyone was glancing back and forth between the pair as though it were a tennis tournament, confusion visible in their eyes. Claire supposed that it was because none of them knew that the two had used to be close friends. They hadn’t talked like this in years. Not since her parents forbade her from hanging out with them, claiming that she should hang out with people of her own stature. Most of her peers were jealous of her for being a part of one of the most renowned families - regardless of her tier - on Mars616, but she had always been jealous of them for having more freedom in what they did and whom with than her.  
Claire steered the conversation towards something more productive. “So, so far Leila and I have grabbed three bows, all the arrows in here, knives - both hunting and utility, a couple of spears which I didn’t even know we had, and all the guns and ammunition we could find. Are we missing anything?”  
Everyone thought for a moment before Collin said, “I think that that should be everything for weapons.”  
Everyone nodded their agreement, and the group headed back to where they had left the trolley with the rest of their supplies to leave the weapons before they all went to the clothing section to find some changes of clothes to bring to Earth.  
“Remember, choose clothing that will be warm, easy to layer, and comfortable. Don’t choose something simply because it looks good,” Leila reminded them before they all split off to find some clothes before meeting back up at the trolley when they were done.  
***  
After they returned to the room that they had started in, everyone sat down on the floor in a circle. “So,” began Leila, capturing the group’s attention. “We should have all the supplies that we need, all that’s left is getting to the ground. Collin, have you figured out our spaceship?”  
“I have. It’s all fueled up and ready to go, so it’s only a matter of changing the location setting, which I can easily do once we get there. We’re going to have to move fast though, once they figure out that we’re hijacking a spaceship, they’ll do everything in their power to stop us.”  
Claire was shocked at what she was hearing. Where had this smart, “I can hack into 616’s system like it’s nothing” Collin come from? He had always been the class clown, messing with the teachers and handing everything in late.  
Claire was brought back to what everyone was saying when Leila said, “So that means that we should be able to leave sometime tomorrow then?”  
“Yes, though we should go sometime after curfew so that everyone is asleep and we having a better chance of sneaking out undetected.”  
“Great. Well, we should probably all eat something and then get some rest - we’re going to have a big day ahead of us. We shouldn’t risk heating anything up, the camping stove isn't supposed to be used indoors, the fumes could kill us, so we’ll have to have a cold dinner. On the bright side, we can sneak into the food stores for next week and make some sandwiches, since they’ll already have the fridgeables stocked for then.”  
“Sounds like a plan,” Claire said, getting up to go grab some food, everyone else following suit.  
They all walked to the room marked with the date May 17th-23rd, 2168 and went straight for the fridges to grab bread, salami, cheddar, lettuce, and butter. They made the sandwiches, placing what was left of the ingredients back in the fridges before heading back to the room that they were using as a home base to eat.  
After they finished eating, everyone grabbed a mat and sleeping bag and laid down to go to sleep. As Claire tried to fall asleep, she went over the events of the day in her head. It had started out so normally…  
Claire woke up to the sound of her alarm going off at 6:30AM, as it did every other day. She groaned, feeling blindly around her bedside table until she managed to hit the button which stopped the infernal beeping. She rolled out of bed - quite literally, as she had misjudged where on the bed she had been laying, and instead of rolling to the edge so that she could swing her legs over and get up, she rolled right off the side and landed on her floor with a thud. Well, that’ll wake you up, she thought, rubbing her shoulder which was sore from her landing on it. That’ll probably leave a bruise, Claire thought, mentally crossing off a list of the outfits that she wouldn’t be able to wear because of it. Oh well.  
She walked towards her ensuite, turning on the hot shower faucet and running the water over her hand until she deemed it a suitable temperature before quickly stripping herself of her clothes and stepping in.  
For a moment she just stood there, allowing the steaming water to wash over her before she figured that she should hurry up so that she isn’t late for school. She quickly washed and conditioned her hair before washing her body and shaving. She then regretfully stepping out of the shower, missing the soothing heat that it provided.  
She finished getting herself ready - washing her face, applying makeup, brushing and blow-drying her hair, and brushing her teeth before she went into her bedroom to tug on some jeans and slip on a simple white blouse which she tucked into her pants. She then returned to her bathroom to straighten her long, blonde hair before she went out into the kitchen to grab some cereal and milk for breakfast. By the time that she was done eating it was 8:00, so Claire shouted a goodbye to her parents and left to go to school. It took about ten minutes for her to walk from her house to school, so she was left with fifteen minutes to stop by her locker to grab her textbooks, say hi to her friends, and get to class before the first bell went off at 8:25.  
About halfway through first block, an officer came to her class ask asked her to go with him. She was unsure of what was going on, but she followed him to the school office, where she saw Leila, Jordan, Jonathan, and Collin already waiting with four other officers. A strange assortment of people, Claire thought. What could they possibly all be involved in that required being pulled out of class and brought to the office?  
“I’m sure that you all know why you are here,” one of the officers began. Based on the looks of confusion on her peers’ faces, Claire figured that they were just as lost about this as she was. “You are all under arrest for breaking into the Mars616’s control system, tampering with the wiring, and killing the four officers who were guarding it. This is a crime punishable by death. You must all come to the officer station now, or you will be forcibly taken.”  
Claire met eyes with each of her peers, each of them conveying a message between each other. Run.  
And they did. They ran as fast as they could, Jonathan taking the lead, leading them all throughout the halls until they reached the hall leading to the storage area. She remembered that at one point Leila had grabbed her hand to pull her along, but everything else was blurry. And then Jonathan had led them through the vents into one of the food storage rooms, they had collected supplies to go to Earth, and were now in the aforementioned storage room, trying to sleep before they stole a spaceship and tried to reach Earth tomorrow.


	2. Chapter Two

Collin woke up around 1:00PM, though he wouldn’t have guessed it based on the four sleeping forms around him, illuminated by the harsh white of the motion-sensor lights in the storage room, nothing like the warm, yellow glow of the lights in the houses on the 616. He didn’t realise what time it was until he’d logged onto the laptop to double check that there hadn’t been any changes with the ship and he’d glanced down at the small clock in the corner of the screen. He wondered what time they had all gone to sleep, to sleep in this late. No one had bothered to check the time, so it could have been five pm or five am for all he knew. Regardless, it had been an exhausting day for all of them, as this one would be as well. And probably for a while after that. Their days of ease were all but over now.  
Collin watched as his companions began to wake, probably due to bright lighting, and felt a twinge of guilt, though they probably should be getting up soon anyways.  
Leila was the first to sit up from her sleeping bag. “What time is it?’ she asked, yawning.  
“Just after one.”  
“PM?” Claire asked in shock, sitting up as well.  
“Yeah.”  
“Wow, we really overslept,” Jordan said. By now all of them were sitting up.  
“So, breakfast or pack up the sleeping bags and mats first?” Jonathan asked.  
“Breakfast,” everyone said in unison before bursting out laughing at how in synch their voices were.  
“All right then,” Leila began, taking change again. “Breakfast it is. We can grab some cereal and milk from next week’s food.”  
Collin volunteered to walk over and grab the food while Jonathan and Jordan ran down to undefined storage to grab some styrofoam bowls and plastic spoons, since no one wanted to get their proper dishes dirty with nowhere to clean them.   
After the three boys returned from their respective missions they all ate in silence.   
When the last of the cereal had been eaten from everybody’s bowls and the milk and cereal had been run back to the other storage room, Jordan spoke up. “So what’s the plan for today?” he asked.  
“Well, station curfew is ten, so all enforcement officers should be in their own houses by eleven. Just to be safe, we’re going to leave here at eleven thirty. Before then, we’re going to need to pack everything in an easily transportable way to get it into the storage area of the ship. We’re going to have to be extremely careful not to get caught, because getting caught means death. Once everything is loaded into the ship, we’ll all strap in and Collin will change our end location to Earth, rather than the moon. From there he’ll set up the launch sequence and we’ll be in space. It’ll take approximately five minutes from when we breach our atmosphere to when we reach Earth’s atmosphere. From there it’ll be about another three minutes of falling combated by our ship’s thrusters until we reach Earth’s surface. Any questions?” Leila said.  
“Yeah. When did you do all that math, Princess?” Jordan asked.  
“Last night. I couldn’t sleep. Any other questions?”  
“Yes, actually,” Jordan said, dropping the teasing tone. “I wanted to leave a note for my sister. It won’t take long to do. I’ll just sneak in after curfew at quarter past eleven. I don’t want to leave without any form of goodbye.”  
Leila’s face softened. “Of course. Just be careful. If you aren’t at the ship by quarter to midnight then we’ll have to leave without you.”  
“That’s perfectly understandable. I wouldn’t want you guys to get caught from me being reckless.”  
“Alright, any other questions?” Leila glanced around. When no one said anything she continued. “Ok, then let’s get to work! First things first, we have to pack up our sleeping bags and mats.”  
Everyone set to work stuffing their sleeping bags into the bags that they came in before letting all of the air out of their mats and rolling them up before putting them in their bags as well.   
Once that was done, everyone began arranging everything in an orderly manner on the trolley. At one point Claire had gone to undefined storage to grab an empty cardboard box, appearing to be from a dish set, which they put all the loose items without their own box into.  
By the time that they were done everything it was six pm and time for dinner. They had sandwiches again, this time searching harder for fancier foods since they wouldn’t be having anything remotely fancy for a while, if ever. They ended up having a French loaf with pastrami, swiss cheese, olives, and mayonnaise on it, with a cake that they found for dessert.  
After everyone had finished their sandwiches and cake, they decided to run down to undefined storage and find some board games and cards to play with. In the four and a half hours that they had until it was time to go, the group played monopoly, clue, cribbage (they had grabbed two boards), and a variety of assorted card games.  
Sometime in between the hands of card games, Collin noticed Jordan get up and slip out to go leave the note for his sister. The others continued playing for another fifteen minutes before making sure that they were entirely ready to leave, and then headed down the hall with the trolley.  
Thankfully there was no ID required to exit the storage area, so the group of four was able to get out and sneak down the hall to the elevator up to the floor which had the launch bay on it. When they reached the launch bay after the fifteen minute sneak through the 616 everyone’s chest untightened a bit, but they weren’t done yet. Collin climbed into the spaceship and turned on the controls so that he could redirect the autopilot to a different end location. He did everything to set up the launch sequence that he could without the door shut. A few minutes after he started this process Collin heard Jordan return and help everyone finish packing everything in.  
Everyone climbed into the ship and strapped in. There was a lot of space in the ship, Collin noticed. Probably enough seats for thirty people. It would work as suitable shelter until they figured out something more permanent. Collin closed the door, sealing them off from the rest of the station before turning on the launch sequence. The countdown began.  
“T minus 10 seconds. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4,” Collin could hear shouts from outside the ship as people realised what was happening. “3. 2. 1.” And they were suddenly airborne, the men on the station unable to do anything to stop them.  
Collin kept an eye on the radar just in case anyone tried to follow them. They didn’t. He looked next to his seat and noticed that there was a pair of headphones with a microphone next it it. He put it on and motioned for the others to do the same.  
Once they were all on, he spoke. “Ok, can everyone hear me? Leila?”  
“Yes.”  
“Claire?”  
“Yes.”  
“Jordan?”  
“Yes.”  
“Jonathan?”  
“Yes.”  
“Ok, good. We’re going to be entering the speed of the light in a minute, so everyone hold on. It’s going to last for about five minutes before we slow down, and then we’ve got about three more minutes once we’ve entered Earth’s atmosphere. Everyone good?”  
There was a chorus of “Yes”’s.  
Soon they were zipping through space too fast to be able to see anything outside of their own rocket. When they finally slowed down after what Collin knew was five minutes, but felt like five years, everyone looked outside in amazement. From the window on the side of the ship they could see Earth in all her glory.  
Then they began the descent. The inside of the ship suddenly got very hot, but there was nothing they could do as they barrelled towards the ground, slowing as their thrusters sprung to life, until they came to a stop against the Earth’s surface.   
***  
Everyone stayed in their seats for a moment to get their bearings before taking their seatbelts off and standing up, their legs wobbly. Collin pressed the button on the ship’s controls which opened the door, and natural light flooded into the ship, momentarily blinding the group that stood within.   
Leila blinked against it, stunned. She had only ever actually seen artificial light before - there were no windows on the 616. Once everyone had adjusted to the light they stepped forward, off the ship. They all stood still for a moment after their feet hit the grass. They’d of course heard about what Earth was like, had even seen pictures and videos, but nothing compared to actually seeing it like this in person.   
They had landed in a meadow surrounded by a lush, green forest of trees that upon further inspection against a book of plants that Leila had had the sense to bring would prove to be spruce trees. The meadow was covered in a blanket of bright green grass which was quite different from the turf fields meant to mimic them back on the 616, and dotted with purple and yellow flowers. Leila could see ice-capped mountains in the distance, her view unhindered by the nearly cloudless sky, which was simply dotted with cottony balls of white fluff. It looked like a scene from a fairytale.  
Leila spun around, laughing in delight. They had made it! They had actually made it! she thought in disbelief. She glanced around to see the others taking in their surroundings with awe as well.  
Though it was sunny on Earth, Leila knew that they should get some sleep before exploring anything. After all, for them it felt like midnight! She turned to the group to voice her thoughts. “As much as I want to look around and explore, it’s midnight for us. We should get some sleep and look around when we wake up.”  
Everyone nodded, though they grumbled a bit about it. They walked over to the hatch into the storage compartment and began to unpack everything into the main interior of the ship for easier access to it. Upon hearing a startled scream, followed closely by a thud, Leila ran outside, Jordan on her heels.  
“What’s wrong?” she asked Claire, who looked as white as a ghost.  
Claire pointed at the storage area. “Someone’s in there.”  
Someone was in the storage area? That couldn’t be good. She was about to poke her head in to find out what was going on, but Jordan beat her to it.  
Jordan swore, followed by an exasperated, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”  
‘Who’s in there?” Leila asked, starting to worry.  
Jordan responded by pulling the person out by the arm. It was a girl, about fifteen, with the same brown hair and bright green eyes as Jordan, those hers held more excitement and curiosity, while Jordan’s currently held anger and a trace of disbelief.  
“Everybody meet my little sister, Julia,” he said in annoyance. “She decided to follow us to Earth.”  
Jordan refused to talk to Julia for the rest of the time spent unpacking, and chose to lay down at the far end of the ship, leaving Claire to grab Julia an extra sleeping bag. “He’ll calm down by tomorrow,” Claire promised the younger girl. “He just needs to cool off. Why don't you get some sleep?”  
“Thanks,” Julia said. “Goodnight.”  
“Goodnight.”  
Leila watched as Claire climbed into her sleeping bag in between herself and Julia. “Goodnight, Claire.”  
“Goodnight, Leila.”  
***  
A few hours later, Jonathan woke up. He didn’t want to disturb anyone, so he silently slipped out. The sun was just barely up, casting bright pinks and oranges across the sky as it set. He spotted a log and sat on it, unable to go back to sleep, but content to watch the sun set.  
A few minutes later, he heard a rustling sound coming from the trees. He poised himself to fight off any intruders, but relaxed when he saw that it was just Jordan. “You’re up early,” he said by a way of greeting.   
“I could say the same about you.” The other boy smirked, coming to sit on the log beside Jonathan.  
“So, what are you doing up this early?” Jonathan asked.  
“Couldn’t sleep. I can’t believe my sister actually came down to Earth with us. And it’s my fault. If I hadn’t brought her that stupid note then she wouldn’t have seen me and followed us here.”  
“Hey, you were doing a good thing. I don’t think that you would have been able to live with yourself if you hadn’t left a note, anyways. Besides, there was no way that you could have known that she would be awake, over an hour after curfew, or that she’d be out of her room and see you. It’s not your fault, so don’t blame yourself.”  
“Oh, is that what you tell yourself?” Jordan lashed out.  
Jonathan kept his features and voice steady. “Yes. that is what I tell myself. When my parents fight. When they go on and on about how we will never climb the system, about how if Lauren, she was my older sister, had survived getting cancer when she was seven then we would be able to climb the system, because she was so smart. When they tell me that if I were just more like her then we’d be fine. When she died, their marriage fell apart. And from their words, I learned to blame myself for it. But then I realised that it wasn’t true. It wasn’t my fault. That was one of the most important and influential realisations in my life. It took me nearly ten years to figure it out, I’m trying to do you a favour here by saving you that time. It is not your fault.”  
Jordan just stared at him. Jonathan figured that that was a fair reaction. He’d never actually told anyone about it, any of it. It felt good to get off his chest.  
“So just, don’t blame yourself, ok?”  
Jordan didn’t give any confirmation, but he didn’t protest, so Jonathan took it as a win. Neither boy said anything more, they just sat outside until the sun went down, and waited until they could see the night’s first star before going back into the ship to get some sleep.  
***  
When the morning rolled around, the sun’s rays shone through the windows of the ship, slowly waking everybody up. Claire groaned. “Someone remind me to throw some blankets over the windows later, ok?”  
Jonathan laughed. “Used to getting you beauty sleep, are you?”  
“Yes!” she mumble-groaned into her pillow.  
Leila burst out laughing, unable to contain it.  
“Hey!” Claire shouted, offended. She grabbed her pillow and smack Leila with it.  
Now it was Leila’s turn to let out a “Hey!”, the air rushing out of her lungs as Claire hit her on the back. “I’ll get you for that!” She grabbed her own pillow and rose up from her sitting position onto her knees and began to hit Claire with her pillow in retaliation.   
The two girls continued playfully assaulting each other with pillows until Jordan joined in, coming up behind Leila to hit her with his own pillow. She shrieked and turned around, pillows coming at her from two directions. “Can I get some help over here?” she asked through giggles.  
“We’ll save you!” Collin joked as he grabbed his own pillow, followed by Jonathan, and began hitting Jordan with it, causing the other boy’s attention to be divided. It was then that Julia, who had been sleeping on the other side of Claire, sat up and grabbed her own pillow to begin hitting Claire with it.  
“Oh, how the tables have turned!” Leila cackled gleefully.  
Her cackling turned into laughter with intermittent shrieks as Claire’s fingers found her sides and began tickling.  
“So you are still ticklish,” Claire smirked, smug.   
“No… Fair!” Leila gasped out, collapsing on top of her sleeping bag. “I surrender! You win!”  
Everyone grinned and put down their pillows.  
“Now how about breakfast?” Collin asked.   
***  
For breakfast they boiled some water on their camping stove to make oatmeal, in which they put dried fruit and nuts. In the future they would need to make a fire so that they only use the fuel when they need it, but right now they were more concerned about getting food into their stomachs.  
They washed their bowls out with soap and water, but they knew that they would have to find a water source so that they didn’t use up all their drinking water on dishes, and so that they could make more drinkable water.  
So, after breakfast, that is what they set out to do. Collin stayed behind to watch camp and to begin the process of hacking back into the 616. They had all agreed that it would be useful to keep tabs on what’s going on up there, and they could also try to figure out who actually committed the crime that they were accused of.  
The group of five set out into the forest, Jordan taking the lead. They didn’t know how long it would take to find water, so they’d brought along jerky and dried fruit for lunch, but he hoped that it would be close. If the water was too far away they would have to move their camp somewhere else and leave the safety of the spaceship behind, and no one wanted that.   
“Everyone keep your ears open for the sound of running water. We don’t even know if we’re walking in the right direction,” Jordan said.  
It felt like they were walking for hours, but eventually they heard it. After that it was a mad scramble to determine where the source of the sound was, and get to it.   
It turned out to be a waterfall, and when they found it they were standing at the top, though that didn’t do them any good. The waterfall appeared to be coming from an underground river, meaning that they couldn’t access it without leaning over the side of the cliff, which looked to be about a thirty foot drop.  
“So close, yet so far!” Claire gasped dramatically. From where they had climbed to to reach the top of the waterfall, they could see their camp, and they could also see that the river at the bottom of the waterfall snaked a lot closer to the camp than where they currently were, and the base of the falls wasn’t too far either.   
“We just have to backtrack down the hill and then re-enter the forest from a different part of the clearing.” Leila said.  
“And it’ll be a lot faster,” Jonathan added. “Since we’ll be going downhill instead of up.”  
While they were walking back towards the clearing, Jordan felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned and saw that it was Claire.  
“What’s up?” he asked.  
“I think that you should go talk to Julia. She really looks up to you, and it’s hurting her that you’re mad at her.”  
“I think that I have every right to be mad at her right now.”  
“You do, but I really think that you should talk to her.”  
He glanced back to where his sister was walking at the back of the group, marvelling at an orange butterfly which was flying around her head.  
“Fine. I’ll talk to her.”  
“Go be a good big brother.”  
He rolled his eyes at Claire before dropping back to walk beside his sister. As he fell into step beside her, she dropped her gaze to the ground, a guilty look on her face.  
“I know you’re mad at me,” Julia began quietly.  
Jordan cut her off with a sigh. “I’m not mad at you. Upset? Yes. But it’s because I’m worried about you! Why would you follow us down to Earth? You could get hurt! Or killed!”  
“You guys didn’t seem all that worried by the prospect of possible death or injury,” Julia pointed out.  
“That is because if we’d stayed on the 616 we would have died anyway.”  
“So would I.” At Jordan’s confused look she added, “Everyone dies eventually, Jor! Might as well live and take risks while you still can!”  
“You’re fifteen! That’s too young to be coming down to Earth!”  
“So what? You guys are only two years older than me. Besides, the 616 is no fun. Earth is an adventure!”  
Jordan sighed, dropping his face into his hands. “If anything happens to you I won’t be able to forgive myself.”  
“Nothing will happen to me! I’ll be fine!” Julia insisted.  
“We’ll see about that,” Jordan mumbled.   
The pair’s conversation was then cut short as they were both distracted by the incredible view in front of them. Leila had led the group back to the clearing and then to the base of the waterfall.  
Everyone walked to the edge of the water pooled at the bottom of the falls creating a large lake before it continued moving along with the river.. Before Jordan could get a word in edgewise Julia had stripped down to her underwear and was now standing on a cluster of rocks a few feet up the side of the falls.   
“Julia! Get down from there!” Jordan shouted. “It’s not safe!”  
“You have to learn to take risks, Jor!” Julia shouted over the roar of the waterfall beside her. “You said you want me to come down? Ok!”  
Jordan realised what she meant a second too late. Julia pushed off the rock and was flying through air for mere seconds before she hit the water with a splash. She resurfaced and laughed.  
“Come on guys! Don’t be chickens! The water feels great! Come swim!”  
“You know, swimming isn’t all that bad of an idea,” Claire said, as she began to strip down as well before climbing up the rocks to jump as well.  
Claire screamed as she fell, but when she broke the surface of the water she had a huge grin on her face. “Come on guys! The water is really nice!”  
Jonathan shrugged. “You know what? Screw it.” He stripped down as well before climbing to jump in the water, higher than the girls had. He let out a whoop as he plummeted towards the water, his splash creating a wave which washed over the girls, causing them to shriek as their heads went under again.  
Leila sighed. “This is childish. But when will we have another opportunity to act like children down here? When else will we get to have fun?” She began sripping as well. “Are you coming?”  
Jordan sighed, but he knew he had been overruled. “Alright.”  
The two climbed up the rocks together. Once they reached the point where Julia and Claire had jumped, they met each other’s eyes, knowing that they were thinking the same thing.   
“Three,” Jordan said.  
“Two,” Leila continued, her eyes sparkling.  
“ONE!” they both shouted, and jumped at the same time, crashing into the water, making a huge splash as they both tucked their legs up into a cannonball.   
The group continued to swim and splash in the water for what Jordan estimated to be an hour, maybe an hour and a half, before they climbed out, shivering.  
“First order of business,” he said. “Let’s all go dry off and get a change of clothes.”  
Everyone nodded their heads in agreement, and they all headed back to camp.  
***  
“What happened to you guys?” Collin asked upon their return. Jordan supposed that it was a fair question. After all, they were all standing around in their underwear, dripping wet.  
“We went swimming!” Julia exclaimed.  
“I can see that. So I take it you found a water source?”  
“Yes, and it’s only a five minute walk from here,” Jordan said.   
“That’s great. Do you want me to grab you guys some towels?”  
“Yes please!” Claire said.  
“Alright then,” Collin shook his head at his peers’ antics.  
After everyone had a towel wrapped around them, they took turns changing in the ship. They then set out to find large rocks to mark a clear path to the waterfall so that it would be easy to find in the future. By the time they were done, everyone was starting to get hungry again, so they decided to prepare dinner. Collin, Jonathan and Jordan went into the woods to find anything that they could use for firewood, while the girls scoured the treeline for kindling. When they all met back up they chose a spot near, but not too close to the ship to set the fire up.   
Leila ran into the ship to grab some matches while Jordan set up a small teepee with twigs over a small pile of kindling, with a larger teepee of larger logs overtop of it. Then Leila came back out with a matchbox in hand and lit a match which she held to the kindling under the teepees. After three tries it caught, and it wasn’t long before they had a proper fire going. Jonathan positioned a metal grate with two folding legs on either side of it that they’d grabbed from the camping section of undefined storage over the fire so that they could cook on it.   
They decided to have chicken noodle soup, so Claire went to find it amongst the other food while she brought Julia with her to find the can opener, pot, ladle, bowls, and spoons. They emerged with four cans and the dishes.   
They placed the pot on the metal grate over the fire and poured each can in before pouring four cans’ worth of water in as well. Collin stirred the pot with the ladle until it was steaming and hot while the others grabbed camping chairs out of the ship for them all to sit on while they ate.   
Once the soup was ready, Collin ladled it into six bowls and handed them out to everyone. They ate, and then hung a lantern in the ship so that they could play games for a couple of hours before they went to sleep, even with the receding daylight.


	3. Chapter Three

The next couple of weeks went along simply. They had set up traps in the woods to help hunt for food without actually having to seek out their prey, though they were sure that they would eventually reach a point where that was necessary. Each day they got up, ate breakfast, washed their dishes in the river, explored and played games, ate lunch,checked the traps, continued exploring and playing games, ate dinner, and went to bed. They settled into a routine, each day blurring into the next.   
Five days in, Collin announced that he’d gotten into the Mars616’s mainframe. It hadn’t been easy, but he’d eventually been able to get in by going through a satellite rather than trying to enter the system directly.   
They had all crowded around the computer to see what was happening, though left a few minutes later after realising that they didn’t have a clue as to what any of the code on the laptop screen meant. Collin promised that he would tell them once he’d gotten access to the security footage, something that would actually mean something to them.   
That happened two days later, though at the time that he’d gotten in, it was night at the station, so there was nothing much to see. Collin used the time to scan through the video footage of the break-in to see why the blame was pinned on the five teenagers.   
Upon opening the file, he was shocked to see his own face, as well as his four fellow accused criminals. He looked closer, and realised that the shadows didn’t match up properly! That meant that the footage had been edited!  
It took days of long work but eventually he’d been able to recover the original footage. Whoever had edited and swapped it had been good, he’d give them that. But not good enough.   
They had also been good at keeping their identity hidden. Most hackers left some form of footprint that he could trace, but this person hadn’t left anything. He spent three days straight trying to find something, anything to connect someone to the editing, but there was absolutely nothing.   
They were also smart in wearing black, baggy clothes with their faces covered when they broke in. It was impossible to tell who it was, or even their gender from the way that they were dressed.   
There were no cameras inside the control room, so Collin couldn’t see what had been done in there, but he was able to see the masked men kill the guards in the hall and enter the control room, but nothing after that.   
He tried going to the cameras farther down the hall - he thought maybe he could see follow where they went, but that didn’t end up working out. He discovered that the footage had been set to a loop in all the hallways near the control room, with the cameras having been turned off so that he couldn’t even access the correct footage. Whoever had done this had known what they were doing.   
That had been two weeks ago. So far nothing much had happened on the 616. He’d watched the footage from the council meeting where it was decided what would be done about the five escaped juvenile delinquents, as they had called them.   
The final decision had thankfully been to leave them alone and not chase after them, as they “Would probably die on Earth anyway,” as one of the councilmen put it.  
The only thing coming upon the newsfeed other than daily announcements about sports and such was an announcement about a new mandatory pill that everyone would have to take after manufacturing was done in a week or so, which had come up a couple days ago.   
It seemed like life was continuing completely normally on the Mars616, not that anything else had been expected.  
So yes, everything had been going normally, both on the Mars616 and down on Earth. That is, until today. Because today, they had discovered an intruder in their camp.  
***  
It was entirely unexpected for someone to show up at their camp, and it had given Julia quite the fright when she’d discovered a person caught in one of their traps intended for wild animals for food.  
They hadn’t seen any evidence of human life anywhere near their camp, so Jonathan wondered how far the girl who was now sitting on one of the chairs around the fire had come.   
Upon her discovery, everyone had rushed over to where Julia was, her scream like a summons to her five companions. They had ushered the girl, who looked to be around their age, over to the chairs by the fire and then stepped out of earshot to discuss what to do about her.   
“Well, I suppose it’s safe to say that life was able to survive the climate change crisis on Earth,” Leila said.   
“Yes, but what do we do about her? How far away are her people? Where are her people? Are they friendly or hostile?” Claire worried.  
“How about we go see if she speaks English and find out,” suggested Jonathan.  
They walked over to the girl and sat down. “First things first, do you speak English?” Jonathan asked.  
The girl nodded. “Yes, I do.” She seemed to hold herself with an air of confidence, not at all intimidated by the strangers in front of her, regardless of the fact that she had gotten caught in one of their traps and was covered in small scrapes from the net which she had been yanked up in.  
“Great. Can you tell us your name?”  
“Yes. My name is Sheila.”  
“Alright, Sheila. What are you doing at our camp?”  
“I was curious. A few weeks ago we saw your ship fall from the sky. I wanted to see what it was and who was in it.”  
“And who is “we”?”  
“My people. We live just on the other side of that mountain.” She pointed into the distance at a nearby mountain. “About a two-hour walk from here.”  
“How many of you are there?”  
“Oh, I’m not sure. Maybe around a hundred? We are made up of a few groups of people whose grandparents managed to survive the six-month heat waves and blizzards.”  
“And are your people hostile?”  
Sheila laughed. “Oh, god, no. They didn’t even want to come figure out if you were friendly or hostile, at the risk of revealing our location. They are very peaceful, and would do anything to avoid a conflict after last time. Of course they don’t mind that the warriors of the previous generation taught my generation how to hunt.”  
“Last time?”  
“Oh, about ten years ago, there was another group living in the mountains that came across our settlement. We have an incredible location, right next to the river, with perfect soil for farming. The best for miles. They wanted it. We were willing to share, but they prefered to fight for ownership of the land. It took a lot of bloodshed on both sides before we managed the upper hand thanks to a bold move of my mother managing to sneak into their leader’s tent and hold a knife to his throat, which led to their surrender and a promise to leave and never return to these mountains. We lost a lot of people, then, and have no desire to do so again.”  
Everyone sat in silence for a moment before Leila cut in. “Sorry to interrupt your interrogation, Jonathan, but Sheila, why didn’t you let us know that your ankle was broken?”  
“Hm?” Sheila glanced down at her ankle where it was indeed clearly broken. It was all purple and swollen, with bone visibly peaking out. “Oh, so it is. I hadn’t noticed. It must have gotten caught in the net and snapped.”  
“Ok, that’s not healthy, to have not even noticed a broken ankle,” Jordan muttered under his breath.  
“If you come into our ship I can at least brace it for you,” Leila offered.  
“Oh, thank you.”  
Jonathan and Collin helped Sheila into the ship, where they sat her down on one of the seats around the sides of the ship.  
Leila dug around in the medical supplies for what she needed while instructing Collin grab her two two-foot, sturdy, relatively flat sticks to use for a brace. When he returned with them, she had pulled out medical wipes, gloves, some advil - they should have brought stronger painkillers with them, tensor bandages, and some fasteners.  
“Here, these will help with the pain,” Leila said, handing Sheila two advils and a bottle of water. “You swallow them.”  
“Thank you.”  
“Ok, I won’t lie, this is going to hurt. A lot. But it’s necessary, otherwise you might not be able to walk on it properly in the future.”  
“Just get it over with.”  
“Ok. I’m going to set it on three. One, two, three!” Leila twisted the bone so that it was now properly lined up. Sheila winced, but other than that made no indication that she was in pain. Jonathan wondered what had happened to her to build up such a high pain tolerance.   
“Alright, the hardest part is over. Now I just have to brace your ankle so that it doesn’t move until it’s healed.” Leaila turned to Collin. “Can I have the sticks?”  
He handed it to her.   
“Thank you.” Leila took the sticks and set them beside her. She then disinfected the open skin before she wrapped Sheila’s ankle with the first tensor bandage to keep it in place. Next, she took the two sticks, each the length from Sheila’s foot to knee. Leila placed one on each side of Sheila’s leg and began wrapping them in place with the tensor bandage to create a splint.   
When she was done, she asked, “How does that feel?”  
Sheila carefully stood and walked a few steps before saying, “Good, thank you.” Her walking would be a bit awkward for a while, but it was better than leaving it to heal in a crippling way or become infected. “Your group is lucky to have a doctor. We haven’t had a proper one in years.”  
“Oh, I’m not a doctor,” Leila said. “My father was. When I was younger I used to complain about his mini-lessons on healing every time I hurt myself and he had to patch me up. Now I’m glad that I at least paid attention to some of it.”  
“Well, I am grateful to you.”  
“Oh, it is no problem,” Leila responded, blushing.  
Jonathan spoke up. “Would you like some help getting home? We wouldn’t want to leave you to fend for yourself with a broken ankle.”  
“Yes, thank you, if it’s not too much trouble.”  
“It’s no trouble at all. And this way we can meet your people and assure them that we have no intention of causing a war.”  
“That’s a great idea.”  
“Before we leave, we should pack up our hiking bags. We don't know how long we’ll be gone,” Leila said.  
“Oh, you won’t need to bring anything with you. My people are a sharing people. We will supply you with food and a place to sleep for as long as you stay with us. You could join our settlement, you know. We’re always open to accepting new joiners.”  
“Thank you. That is very kind of you.”  
“It’s nothing, really. A courtesy which we extend to all those we come across.”  
“Still, thank you.”  
“Alright,” Jonathan cut in, knowing that the loop of “thank you”s and “you don’t need to thank me”s could go on for a very long time. “We should probably leave soon, you said it takes two hours to get there, right?”  
“By my estimation, yes. But it will take longer with my ankle.”  
“Ok, so then do you guys want to eat a quick lunch first, and then we’ll go?”  
“Lunch sounds like a great idea, but I’m actually going to stay back here,” Collin said. “I want to continue trying to figure out who framed us.”  
“That makes sense. I don’t think that any of us would truly be able to leave here without figuring that out,” Claire admitted.  
“Ok, so then why don’t Jonathan and I take her back to her settlement, stay the night because I think it will be too late to come back, and then we’ll be back in the morning,” Leila suggested.  
“Sounds like a plan,” agreed Jonathan.  
“Ok. We should still eat some lunch before we go, though, “ Leila said.  
They ate a quick lunch, washed their dishes in the river, and then prepared to set out. Before they left Collin stopped them. He handed Jonathan an object.   
“This is a radio from the ship, I just remembered that they were there. Don’t turn this dial, it adjusts the frequency that you’re on, and we need to stay on the same one. Hold this button in if you want to talk,but let it go after otherwise you won’t hear my response, ok?” Collin explained.  
“Got it,” Jonathan said in confirmation. He slipped the radio into the small backpack that he had on with water in it.  
And then they set out into the forest, making sure to show Sheila where all of the traps that they normally just habitually avoided so that she wouldn’t get caught again.  
While they walked they exchanged stories. Sheila told them about her village’s history and what had happened during and after the climate change crisis, and they told her about the 616 and the predicament that had landed them here.  
The walk ended up taking about three hours, judging by position of the sun in the sky, according to Sheila. She told them that she would teach how to determine time using the sun as well. “You won’t always have that computer on you, it is a useful skill.”  
When they approached the village, a couple of people tending fields on the outskirts noticed them and ran to greet them.  
“Sheila where have you been?”  
“Your parents are worried sick about you!”  
“You should know better than to sneak out by now.”  
“What happened to your leg?”  
Sheila quieted them by raising her hand at shoulder level, palm towards them. Jonathan wondered if such a trick would work if his elementary teachers from school had tried it.  
“I would like to speak to my parents. Do you know where they are?” Sheila asked.  
“In the commander’s tent,” one of the women supplied.  
“Thank you, Silvia.”  
Sheila led them in the direction of what Jonathan presumed was the commander’s tent.  
“Commander, huh?” he asked as they walked.  
“Yes. My mother was named commander after what she did in the war, and I guess the title just stuck. I mean, we’ve always had a leader, the title for leader just changed to commander for the war, and it never changed back.”  
“Is that why those people listened when you gave them that sign to shut up?”  
Sheila laughed. “You could put it that way, yes.”  
They reached the tent, and Sheila took a breath before pushing aside the door and stepping inside.  
Immediately everyone looked up. A woman that Jonathan assumed to be Sheila’s mother stood up. “Sheila! Where have you been? We’ve been so worried about you!”  
Sheila steeled herself and then said, “I went to see the people who crashed from the sky.”  
“Sheila, you can’t just go and do things like that! The committee voted not to go find out who they were, and you are supposed to respect that decision.”  
“I know, I know. But they’re friendly!” She motioned to the two people standing behind her. “Leila here is their doctor.” She shot Leila a look clearly saying “Just go with it”. “She fixed my ankle after I foolishly broke it.”  
“And there are only six of them, hardly a threat.”  
“It was still a brash decision. But your new friends can stay here if they’d like. We are hardly a people to turn anyone out.”  
“That is very kind of you,” Leila said. “But we won’t be needing to stay long. Just the night and then we have to get back to the rest of our group.”  
“Well, we’ll make sure you’re comfortable for the night, at least. Thank you for healing my daughter’s ankle. She makes many rash decisions and often injures herself in the process. I’m not sure that she would have made it home without you. I’ll have Darrel,” she motioned to a man beside her. “Set you up in one of the empty houses so that you can put you bag down. It’s almost dinnertime, so Sheila can show you to the campfire after you’re done.”  
“Thank you,” Leila and Jonathan said at the same time.  
As soon as they’d followed Darrel outside, Sheila shrugged her shoulders and said, “Could have gone worse.”  
Jonathan looked at her. “Were you expecting it to go worse?”  
“Maybe a little.”  
“Then why did you risk it?”  
“Like I said, I was curious.”  
“Have you ever heard the phrase “curiosity killed the cat”? What if we’d been hostile? You very well could have been killed.”  
“Yes, I have heard that phrase. I also know that that’s not the whole thing. The second part is “But satisfaction brought him back.””  
Leila laughed. “She’s right you know.”  
They walked the rest of the way in silence, but for thanking Darrel when they reached the small house, until they were inside, and Sheila asked, “Why is it that you care so much about my safety?”  
Leila laughed at that, and turned to look at Jonathan for his answer.  
“Because I like you. You’re nice, and I wouldn’t want you to die. Is that not normal?”  
Leila turned to Sheila. “You heard him. It’s because he likes you.” She said in a singsong voice before she turned back to Jonathan. “She likes you too, you know.”  
Both teenagers were blushing and looking down, but neither denied Leila’s claims.  
“I saw the fire on the way over here, I can get to it by myself. I think I’m going to give you guys a minute to talk.” Leila left.  
There were long minutes of silence before Jonathan said, “Is it true? Doyoulikeme?”  
Sheila laughed. “I’m sorry, could you repeat yourself? I couldn’t hear what you said.” It was clear that she was enjoying teasing him.  
“I asked if you like me.”  
“Of course I do. You’re nice,” she continued to tease, using his own words against him.  
He groaned. “I meant do you like me like that, and you know it.”  
“Do I though?” At his exasperated eye roll and expectant look she said, “Yes, Jonathan. I do like you. Like that. The real question is, do we want to do anything about it? I mean, there’s a bit of a distance problem.”  
“Do you want to do anything about it?”  
In response, she leaned over and kissed him. Jonathan fell backwards, not expecting her to be so forwards, so she ended up on top of him.  
“What to do you think the answer is?”  
He just sat up and kissed her again. Then he got up, keeping his arms positioned around her waist so that she wouldn’t fall, seeing as she was sitting on his lap. “To be continued.” He opened the door and walked out, relishing the look of shock on Sheila’s face.  
There was a moment where it seemed that she was just too shocked to move, but an instant later she was out the door and grabbing his wrist, tugging him back.  
“You aren’t going anywhere.”  
“Actually I am. Dinner has already started. They’ll wonder what’s taking us so long, especially since Leila’s already out there.”  
She groaned, but Jonathan could see that she knew he was right. “Later,” she said.  
“Yes, ma’am.”  
They walked towards the large fire side by side, closer than they were before. When they came to sit by Leila she had a huge smirk on her face.  
“Shut up,” Jonathan told her, giving her shoulder a light shove.”  
“I didn’t say anything,” Leila said, raising her arms in surrender.  
They sat down just in time to receive some of the meat which had been prepared by the people on cooking duty. Sheila explained to them that there was a list of chores that everyone rotated through, though you could trade with people if they were willing.  
They found out that they had been eating rabbit meat, and it tasted delicious. Much better than when they cooked any rabbits that they managed to catch. Jonathan made a mental note to ask what they were using to season it.  
People stayed around the fire for a little while after dinner, but as it got darker they slowly left, including Leila, claiming that she was extremely tired.  
Eventually it was just Jonathan and Sheila left.  
“So, what do want to do?” Sheila asked as soon as they were alone. “Do we want to make this a thing and try to make the distance work? Do we want to pretend that it never happened? Do we want to make out while you’re here and pretend that it never happened afterwards?”  
“I’ll stay here,” Jonathan blurted out.  
“What?” Sheila asked, clearly taken aback.  
“I’ll stay here. It’s not like I’m actually needed back at the ship, and if they do need me for something I’m only a couple of hours away. They can contact me whenever I want, since I have the radio. Besides, once Collin manages to figure out whatever it is he needs the computer for, then they’ll come over here, too. It’ll probably only be a few more weeks at most.”  
“Are you serious? You would do that for me?”  
“I know we only just met, but I like you, and I want to see where this will go. If that’s what you want as well?”  
“Yes, of course that’s what I want!”  
“Great, then it’s settled.” He placed a quick peck on her lips, smiling. “But right now, we should get some sleep, it’s pretty late. I’ll walk you to your house, I wouldn’t want you hobbling around on that broken ankle alone in the dark.”  
“How chivalrous of you.”  
***  
Leila woke up with the sun, yawning and stretching. She looked around for a moment in confusion before remembering where she was. She glanced to the other side of the room and saw Jonathan sleeping soundly. She hadn’t seen him come in last night, so she figured that she must have fallen asleep before he came inside. She had certainly been tired enough to do so.  
She didn’t want to wake him, so she went outside to see what she could help with for breakfast. She was directed to the cooking fires, which burned a lot lower than the large fire which everyone ate around, but were also much hotter. Breakfast was eggs and wild boar - bacon, ham, and sausages. She helped fry the eggs sunny side up in a pan on a grill over the fire. When breakfast was ready and served to everyone she went to sit down with Jonathan and Sheila, a plate in hand.  
She sat down beside Jonathan. “Hey, lovebirds.”  
“I thought I told you to shut up.”  
“That was yesterday.”  
“Well, I’m not going to have to take your teasing any longer, at least for a while. I’m staying here.”  
Leila nearly dropped her plate. “What?”  
“I said I’m-”  
“I know what you said. You’re actually staying?”  
“Yes. I want to see where this,” he motioned between himself and Sheila. “Goes. You guys are going to move up here once Collin is done with the computer anyways, right?”  
“Yeah, right. We are. Good for you guys. Might be a bit soon to be moving in together, but you do you.”  
“We aren’t moving in together. Jonathan is going to have his own house. We just don’t want to have to deal with two hours of walking between us.”  
“Fair enough.”  
“Will you be fine getting back on you own?”  
“Yeah, if Sheila could draw me a map.”  
“That I can do,” Sheila said with a smile.  
“Great.”  
Sheila drew her a map of the area covering both the village and the ship. She included landmarks to help Leila know where she was, but suggested the route of just following the river, though she would have to diverge from it when she went through the tunnel which was blown through the mountain, though it would be fairly easy to find it again. Other than that she just had to follow the river until she reached the waterfall, and she could find her way back from there easily.  
They gave her some seasoned dried rabbit meat and dried apricots to eat in case she got hungry while she was walking. She was just about to leave when the radio blared to life.  
“Jonathan, come in. This is Collin. I repeat, Jonathan, come in. This is Collin. Over.”  
Jonathan picked up the radio. “This is Jonathan. What’s up? Over.”  
“Hi Jonathan. Is Leila with you? Over.”  
“Yes, I am. Over,” Leila said.  
“Great. I need you both to get back here. Over.”  
“I’m actually going to be staying. Sheila and I are together now. Over.”  
“That happened extremely fast. Regardless, I don’t care if you’re going to be staying there or not, this is a matter that involves all of us. Over.”  
Leila took the radio. “What’s going on, Collin? Have you figured out who it was? Over.”  
“No, I haven’t been able to figure that out yet, but what I have found is that there’s something wrong with the system.”  
“Wrong how? Over.”  
“Something else is taking it over. We think that it might be an AI. That would explain why someone broke into the control centre but didn’t do anything noticeable. It is very possible that the officers checking to make sure that no damage had been done wouldn’t notice an extra hard drive. Over.”  
“Can you think of any reason why someone would want to put an AI into the system? Has it done anything yet? Over.”  
“We aren’t sure what it’s intentions are. It’s currently lying dormant, but it is in a position where it can seize control of operations with little to no repercussions for itself. Over.”  
“That does not sound good. Let us know if you make any headway. Over.”  
“Wait! I may have just found something. I’ve been working while we were talking.”  
“Well, what is it? Over.”  
“I’ve gotten access to the AI’s base programming, and… if I can just… there! Ok, so basically, in the simplest of terms I can put it, pretty much every AI, robot, whatever, has a core command. They have functions that allow it to fulfill the core command, but everything it does is for that core command. I just found the core command for the AI.”  
“Well don’t leave us hanging! What is it? Over.”  
“It’s, in understandable English, “Create human equality.” Over.”  
“So then whoever installed it is trying to create equality? Over.”  
“Yes, though an AI is not the way I would have gone about it. It does what you tell it to do, not what you want it to do. Remember that really old short story that we had to read for English class in year nine? Harrison Bergeron? The government’s goal was to create human equality, so they made life more difficult for everyone so that everyone was equal. That is the kind of thing an AI would think is a proper solution. Over.”  
“That definitely isn’t good. Have you figured out how it’s going to go about it? Over.”  
“Just working on that now. Give me a second. Over.”  
Leila, Jonathan, and Sheila sat in worried silence for what in reality was no longer than ten minutes but felt like hours until they heard Collin shout, “Got it!”  
“What? What did you find? Over,” Leila asked.  
“Oh that’s not good. So you guys remember that new pill that’s going to be distributed? It’s going to give the AI control over everyone. No one will have any free will. That’s how it’s going to make everyone equal. Over.”  
“Well then we have to stop it! You said that it’s programmed to make all humans equal, right? Over.”  
“Right. Over.”  
“So that means that we aren’t safe from it on Earth. All humans. Over.”  
“I hadn’t even thought about that part. Over.”  
“Do you think that you can destroy it? Over.”  
“Not from here. Over.”  
“And by that you mean what? Over.”  
“It means that we have to get back onto the 616 or everyone is going to become mind controlled by an AI. Over.”  
***  
“This is insane,” Leila said. “How are we going to going to get back onto the 616? Let alone without getting caught. Over.”  
“You forget that we have a perfectly working spaceship into which we can preset a location. All we need is fuel. Over,” Collin replied.  
“And where are we going to find fuel down here? Over.”  
“I actually might be able to help with that,” Sheila spoke up. “There’s a NASA base not too far from here. I’m sure that they left behind some fuel.”  
“That’s great. I only hope that we can get to it in time.”  
“We should be able to get there in less than a day round trip if we take one of the trucks.”  
“Wait, you guys have vehicles?” Jonathan asked.  
“Oh, yes, we do. Only the solar powered ones work anymore, but they’re better than nothing. We can only take them on the road, though, so they aren’t much use up in the mountains. The nearest road is about a half hour away from here, and then it’s just a matter of driving to the NASA base, getting fuel, and getting into space.”  
Leila explained the the plan to Collin while Sheila went to talk to her mother about the situation and borrowing a truck. About a half hour later Sheila came out of the commander’s tent and gave them a thumbs up.  
“All good. Let’s head back to your base to show the others the way here and then we’re all set to go.”  
Leila informed Collin that they were headed their way, and then they set out. Three hours later, and they were at the ship.  
The others were waiting for them with daypacks full of water and snacks. They had spent the three hours that it took for the trio to get there packing up all of there stuff so that they would be able to leave as soon as they got back with the fuel.   
“You guys ready to go?” Leila asked.  
“Yes. Everything is packed and ready to go,” Jordan said. “We even packed food and water for you guys.” He handed each of them a backpack.  
“All right! Then let’s go.”  
They hiked back up to the village and then the extra half hour to the trucks.   
“Are you sure that this thing is safe?” Claire asked, inspecting one of the trucks.  
“100%. I go out in them all the time. Come on, it’ll be fun,” Sheila assured her.  
They got into the truck and drove, Sheila driving, Jonathan in the passenger seat, and herself and the other four members of their party basically sitting on top of each other in the back. Once they were onto what appeared to be a main road, as it was bigger than the small dirt one they had started on, Sheila grabbed a plastic case out of the glove box. From it she took a round shiny flat thing.  
“What is that?” Leila asked.  
Sheila looked shocked at her question. Jonathan answered for her. “It’s a CD. It plays music. They don’t have very many on the 616 since the audio files on computers last longer and are more convenient.”  
Sheila put the CD into a small compartment in the truck, and, sure enough, music started playing. Leila didn’t recognise it, but Jonathan and Claire certainly did, and started singing along to it, along with Sheila.  
Sheila only had one CD, saying that it was a compilation of songs that her great grandparents had made for road trips. Because she only had one CD, they played it on a continuous loop, so the rest of the group was singing along by the end of the four hour long drive.


	4. Chapter Four

The group stepped out of the truck and stretched their legs after the long drive. The looked up in awe at the building before them. It was the tallest building in the area that had not collapsed, although the roof appeared to be caved in and most of the windows were shattered.   
They walked toward the building, looking for an entrance.  
“Have you been in here before?” Jordan asked Sheila.  
“No, there was no need, and the building looked too unstable to risk it.”  
They located the entrance and walked inside the unlocked door. “Ok, everyone be careful,” Leila said. “If you see any shifting, tell everyone and get out of here.”  
They found a map of the facility and began to walk to where the storage rooms were. Jordan watched as Leila looked around the interior of interior of the building in awe. Collin looked amazed as well, but he was containing it a lot better.  
Jordan laughed at the expression on Leila’s face. “You do realise that for most of your life you lived on a station designed by these people, and currently live in a rocket ship designed by them, right, Princess?”  
“So? This is NASA headquarters! You aren’t even a little bit awestruck?”  
“No.”  
“Your loss,” Collin said.  
They continued walking, when suddenly the lights came on. Everyone looked around in wonder. How had the lights turned on?  
Suddenly, they heard a voice from behind them. “Now what would seven youngsters like yourselves be doing breaking into NASA?”  
They all spun around to face the man from whom the voice was coming.  
He was an average height, maybe five foot nine. He was a bit burly, and had a thick beard. He spoke with a light southern accent, as though he had been born in Texas and then left in his preschool years. Very faint, but there all the same.  
“We didn’t mean to break in, as you put it. We didn’t know that anyone was living here. We just came to get some rocket fuel, and then we’ll be out of your hair,” Jordan said.  
“And what would you be needing rocket fuel for?”  
“To go to Mars,” Leila put simply.  
“Oh, you want to go to Mars, huh?” the man asked in a patronizing voice. “You have a rocket ship for that?”  
“Yes, we do, actually,” Claire said. “And we need to get the fuel or an AI is going to take control of all human minds.”  
“Is it now?”  
Jordan sighed. He knew that they weren’t going to get anywhere with this man. He just thought that they were kids messing around. He needed to change that. “Listen, we’re from the Mars616 station. We left after we were falsely accused of a crime, and through trying to solve who actually committed the crime we found an AI which is programmed to make all humans equal. It is going to do this by forcing everyone to swallow a pill which will give it full control over mind and body. Humans will just be puppets for it to play with. Unless we can unplug it from the system. And for that, we need to get onto the station. We have the ship that we came down in, we just need the fuel to get there.”  
The man stared at them for a few minutes, realising that they weren’t just messing around and breaking into NASA for the fun of it. “And why should I help the people of the Mars616, huh?” he asked eventually. “They’ve never done nothing for me. They left us down here to die, only took “essential personnel.” Maybe they deserve to be mind controlled by an AI.”  
“Maybe they do. But that’s not the point,” Leila said. “The point is that the AI is programmed to make all human lives equal. Including those on Earth. It’s not just going to be the people on the Mars616 who are puppets. You, and everyone else on Earth, will be as well.”  
The man shook his head. “I have got to stop getting myself involved in interplanetary matters.”  
“Just a thought, maybe you shouldn’t be working for NASA if that’s your opinion,” Collin muttered under his breath, close enough for Jordan to hear, forcing him to stifle a laugh.  
“So will you let us get the fuel, now?” Jonathan asked.  
“Fine, go save the world or whatever,” the man said with a wave of his hand. “I’ll show you where it is.”  
“That’s very kind of you,” Leila said.  
“I’m just making sure that you all don’t break anything.”  
As they walked, Jordan could see Leila debating with herself over whether or not she should ask the man the question she so clearly wanted to. He mouthed “go ahead, ask him” at her, but she shook her head in nervousness. So he walked up to fall into step beside the man.   
“So, what’s your name?” he asked.  
“James, but my friends call me Jimmy.”  
“Nice to meet you Jimmy, I’m Jordan.”  
“I said my friends, kid. You lot aren’t my friends.”  
Jordan continued. “Is there anyone else living here?”  
“Yes.”  
“How is the power still working?”  
“Solar powered generators.”  
Leila came to walk beside them. “You spoke as though you were there when they did the lottery for who got to go to Mars? Why is that?”  
“Because I was there. Those of us who worked here at NASA who didn’t get to go up to space put ourselves in cryostasis, set the controls to wake us once the weather patterns were back to normal.”  
“That’s incredible!”  
“How have you all survived?” Jordan asked. “It doesn’t seem like there’s any useable farmland out here.”  
“We used the tester space farms. They were just an experiment, meant to tell whether we could effectively grow food in space or not. Same as what you had up on Mars for growing food. We were lucky that it managed to flourish without being attended to while we were in cryo, so we woke up to plenty of fresh food to eat.”  
They reached a door marked “Fuel Storage.” “I think that’s enough questions,” James said. “We’re here.”  
Collin grabbed the amount of fuel that they would need, since he was the only one who actually knew anything about spaceships, aside from Leila, though she more so knew about the math and science part, not the flying and hardwear.  
They thanked James and began walking back to the doors when suddenly the speaker system came to life. “This is the earthquake early warning system. Everyone take cover. This is the earthquake early warning system. Everyone take cover.”  
James swore and yelled, “You heard it! Get under something!”  
Everyone dove under the nearest tables and desks as the ground began to shake. The shaking only lasted for about a minute before it stopped. When the shaking was over, everyone started to climb out from under the tables.   
James yelled, “Wait! Get back under the tables! You have to wait one hundred and twenty seconds!” But it was too late. Debris came crashing down. Those who had climbed out from under the tables dove towards them again.  
Once all the debris had settled, they climbed out from under the tables, being more cautious this time. Jordan did a quick headcount, face going pale as he realised they were missing one person. He quickly looked around, only to realise that it was Julia.   
He immediately panicked. “Julia! Julia, where are you?” he shouted.  
He heard her response almost immediately, and nearly sighed in relief. “I’m here, I’m fine. My arm does hurt a little though.”  
They walked around the pile of debris to where Julia had been knocked to the ground, her arm pinned under the pile, but other than that, fine.  
Jordan started lifting debris off her arm before Leila yelled, “Wait!”  
He turned to face her. “What?”  
“All that weight on her arm probably broke it. There is a chance that shards of bone pierced the brachial artery, and if we aren’t careful, she could bleed out.”  
“Well, how do we stop that from happening?” Jordan asked, impatient.  
“First, we need to make a tourniquet out of some fabrique to cut off the circulation of blood to her arm, though an elastic would work better. We can make a quick tourniquet out of fabrique, and then add the elastic as soon as her arm is free.”   
“Where are we going to get an elastic?” Jordan asked.  
In response Leila pulled her ponytail out, letting her brown hair settle just at shoulder length. Jordan didn’t think he’d ever seen Leila with her hair down before.  
“Ok, we’re going to remove the debris carefully.”  
They did so, and as soon as it was gone Leila stretched the elastic and pulled it over Julia’s arm, a couple of inches past the elbow.  
“Ok, next we’re going to brace her arm. I need a length of wood, pipe, or something else that is solid that will reach from her wrist to her elbow.”  
Collin dug around in the pile of debris and came up with a pipe likely originally a water pipe. He handed it to Leila.  
“Ok, Jordan, I’m going to need your shirt.”  
“My shirt?” he asked.  
“Don’t give me that look. Yes, your shirt. You’ve got plenty left on the ship.”  
He took his sweater off before removing his shirt and handing it to Leila, pulling his sweater back on and zipping it back up.   
Leila tore the shirt into a long strip. “I’m going to set your bone into the proper position now. It’s going to hurt, but it’ll feel a lot better soon. I’m going to count to three, ok?” She tore off a piece of the long strip of torn up shirt and handed it to Julia. “You can bite down on this.”  
“Ok.”  
“One, two, three!” She twisted the bone back into place, Julia’s scream muffled by the fabric stuffed in her mouth.  
Jordan soothed her, stroking his fingers through her hair. “It’s ok. You’re ok.”  
Leila positioned the pipe against Julia’s arm and wrapped the torn shirt around the arm and the pipe to hold it in place before tying it off.   
“That should be good until we can use something better,” Leila said.  
Jordan offered a hand to Julia to help her up. She grabbed it and he pulled her to her feet.  
They carefully exited the building and headed back to the truck, thanking James as they left.  
They got in the car and started driving. About three hours and forty five minutes after they started driving, the car slowed to a stop.  
“What’s wrong?” Jordan asked.  
“The car isn’t working,” Sheila said. She tried turning the engine off and then starting it up again, but nothing happened.   
“I’m going to check out the engine and see if something’s wrong. Be right back.”  
Sheila left the car for a few minutes. From in the car Jordan saw her open the hood and poke around inside for a while. She closed it with a frown on her face before circling the car.   
When she hopped in she was still frowning. “Bad news. The solar panel that powers this thing is shattered. Must’ve happened during the earthquake. We’re going to have to walk the rest of the way. We were so close! We only had fifteen miles left!”  
“How long will it take to walk that?” Jordan asked.   
“About four hours, three if we speed-walk. We’re lucky that the road is easy terrain, rather than forest, otherwise my ankle would slow us down a lot.”  
“Then I guess we’d better get walking.”  
***  
It was dark by the time that they reached the village, so Sheila found them all somewhere to sleep. “Space can wait till morning. We just walked fifteen miles. Everyone’s exhausted,” was her reasoning to convince everyone to sleep.  
When morning came around, Claire woke up bright and early, too anxious about the day to come to sleep well. A quick glance around the room showed that her companions were experiencing the same thing, all either already awake or shifting about in the process of waking up.  
They knew, however, that there was currently nothing that they could do. They couldn’t walk to the ships until it was brighter out, and even then not until they’d eaten some food.  
So they tossed and turned in their bunks, trying but failing to fall back asleep until breakfast time to distract their restless minds. Eventually the hours passed and Claire heard the commotion of everyone else leaving their houses to start the day.   
She jumped up, closely followed by the rest of their group, and started towards the cooking area to help make breakfast. After the making and eating of breakfast seemed to go agonizingly slow, they were finally ready to leave.  
The seven teenagers gathered at the edge of the fields to start the three hour long hike that would take them back to the spaceship so that they could go to Mars.  
The hike passed slowly as well, and Claire wished that things would just speed up. She hated having to wait, it made her anxious.  
When they finally reached the spaceship, the hours seeming like days, Claire was near bursting out of her skin. She all but ran to the ship once it was in sight.  
As everything was already packed into the ship’s storage area, all the teens had to do was get into the ship, strap in, wait for Collin to fill the fuel tank and start her up, and then they would be good to go.   
Claire watched Collin press some buttons that she didn’t understand, and then she heard the countdown.  
“Blast off in T minus 10 seconds. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.”  
And then they were in the air, soaring towards the outer reaches of Earth’s atmosphere before breaking through into outer space. Claire could see Sheila marvelling at everything from her carefully chosen seat with a perfect view out the window.  
Claire realised that Sheila had never been to space. This must have been as intriguing for her as coming to Earth was for them.  
Claire heard Collin’s voice over the headsets. “Ok, everyone, brace yourselves. We have left Earth’s atmosphere and are about to enter lightspeed, so hold onto your seats.”  
And sure enough, they entered lightspeed a moment later, the five minute long ride just as exhilarating as the first time they had done it, on their way to Earth from the station.   
The station which they now approached. It was interesting seeing the station from far away like this, especially since it was currently night on the station clocks, around three am, Collin had informed them from the clock on the ship’s controls.  
The place that had once been the epicentre of Claire’s life, what she had once seen as the epicentre of all life, looked so small and lifeless. Claire smirked at the irony.  
They docked as quickly and quietly as they could, though Collin warned them that it was likely that their arrival would be noticed and they would soon have company.   
They carefully snuck through the halls, each weilding a gun with tranquilizer darts to take out the guards outside of the control room, as they probably wouldn’t believe their story. Claire doubted that any of them were actually good shots, but if all seven of them fired in the general vicinity of the four guards, logically they should be able to hit them all before they run out of bullets, or at least that was what Leila had assured her.  
If they were lucky, they’d be in and out in under half an hour and gone before anyone realised that they were even there. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem as though luck was on their side that day.  
They had made it three quarters of the way from the launch pads to the control centre when a group of armed guards approached them. “Listen, we aren’t here to hurt anybody,” Leila said. “We’re trying to save you.”  
Jordan tugged Leila’s arm. “It’s no use talking to them, look at their eyes.”  
Claire looked at the officers’ glassed over eyes and her own widened in realisation at seemingly the same moment as the rest of the group. “We’re too late,” Claire whispered. “The AI already got them. They’re being controlled by it.”  
“But we can still save them,” Collin said. “By removing the hard drive with the AI from the system it should disable it’s control over people. It needs to be connected to a system to use as, well, I guess you could call it a body, otherwise it’s pretty useless.”  
“Finally, some good news,” Jordan said. “Now let’s tranq this AI!”  
They all began shooting at the AI controlled officers, btu eventually they realised that though they could hold their own, they weren’t making any progress.  
“You guys take the E passage to get to the control centre instead, Sheila and I can hold the fort here,” Jonathan shouted.  
“Are you sure you guys will be ok?” Leila asked.  
“Of course. We only have to keep the fight going until you guys pull the plug on this thing, right?”  
“Right.”  
“So get going!”  
The group of five backtracked to E passage and turned down it. It was the longer of their route options, but hopefully this one wouldn’t be blocked by mind-controlled zombies.  
They made it to the doors with no trouble, though Claire knew that they would have to take out the guards quickly before the officers that they had heard approaching behind them caught up and forced them to fight a two-front battle.  
They decided the best strategy was to go in guns blazing and fire at the guards until they all dropped. The tactic worked, though not before they could all get into the control room without being followed by a legion of officers who would do everything that they could to stop them.   
“Collin, Leila!” Jordan yelled. “You two are the smart ones, you’ll know which hard drive is the right one to pull out. We’ll hold the fort out here.”  
Out of her peripheral vision Claire saw Leila and Collin back up and go through the door into the control room. Claire hoped that they would find the right one in time.  
The three remaining teenagers formed a line across the front of the door, Jordan in the middle flanked by Claire and Julia on either side, shooting mercilessly at the mind-controlled officers.  
The fighting seemed to last hours, days, months, years, decades, though Claire knew it was only mere minutes, if that. She wished she had her bow, even though she didn’t have the space to shoot it in the cramped hallway.  
And then suddenly, all the officers left standing dropped their weapons and looked around, clearly wondering how they had gotten there. Collin and Leila ran out of the control room just in time to get recognised by the officers and arrested.   
***  
Jonathan banged his fist against the bars on the cell which he shared with the six other teenagers. They had done all this, all this to save these people, and this was how they were repaid?  
He took a step back as an officer approached the cell. “The council wants to speak with you. Please go willingly. They are determining your fate, so I would suggest dropping the whole banging on the bars attitude.” He unlocked the cell.  
While they walked, Leila fell into step beside Jonathan. “Hey, might want to let me handle the diplomacy, ok?”  
“I am perfectly fine with that. I certainly don’t feel like sucking up to a bunch of government officials whom I just saved the lives of.”  
They reached the councilroom and walked inside, taking a seat when the officer motioned for them to do so.  
“Why have you called us here?” Leila asked.  
“Because we would like to hear your story,” one of the councilmen replied simply. “We have yet to lift the original case against you, though I do think that it is highly improbable that you would go through all the trouble of putting the AI in the control room only to take it out again after it’s plan has just started working. Or for you to use tranq guns now if you had killed those four men which you were accused of.”  
So Leila told them everything, making sure to highlight on the fact that they would all be mind-controlled right now if not for them.  
When she was done, the councilman nodded at the officer, who asked them to wait outside. When the council came to their decision they were called back in.  
“We have decided,” said the councilman. “That you will be allowed to live. There is still much more to discuss, particularly the fact that the Earth is survivable, but that is a topic for another day. Something that will indeed be discussed today, however, is the matter of the Earth girl.” He motioned towards Sheila, who slid a bit closer to Jonathan.   
“The council has decided that she will be sent back down to Earth in one of our ships.”  
“Sir, if I may,” Jonathan began. “I would like to return to Earth with her.”  
“Whatever for?”  
“We are… romantically involved.”  
“Ah, I see. Teenage romance. Well, we can’t get in the way of that, can we? Sure, you can go with her. Anyone else?”  
The entire group raised their hands.  
“Very well then. I suppose that the matter of immigration between Earth and Mars will begin sooner rather than later, and you can be the first of our society on Earth to get things set up. Any other requests while you’re at it?”  
“Actually, yes,” Jonathan said. “I would like to request that on Earth, tiers be removed. Anyone who cares enough about them can stay here. We believe that whoever started this whole thing with the AI was probably acting in direct opposition to the tier system and we would like to avoid that again.”  
“Sure, whatever, no tiers on Earth. Is that all?” the councilman asked with an exasperated voice.  
Jordan stepped forward. “Not a formal request, but a suggestion as to what will be done with the hard drive containing the AI.”  
“Yes?”  
“I say we send it to Pluto.”


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A.k.a. the epilogue

He stepped outside of the safety of his ship, clad in an airtight spacesuit, and approached the small rocket that had crashed onto this planet which he called home. He grabbed it and opened it up, fingers clumsy due to the thick gloves of his suit, but managing it after a couple tries. He reached inside and pulled out a short black stick, the only contents. He took it inside to examine it further, immediately recognizing the object for what it was under proper lighting from his years spent on Earth before he went into sleep, an accident forcing him to go into cryostasis until he crashed into this planet and eventually woke here, after the one hundred and fifty years that he had set his cryo tank to keep him under for. Yes, he recognized the object. But what was it doing on a miniature rocket which had crashed into Pluto?


End file.
